1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the oil field industry. More particularly, the invention relates to fiber optics, conduits and junctions for use in the downhole environment.
2. Prior Art
In recent years fiber optic technology has been integrated into many different fields of endeavor particularly with respect to communicating information and power. Gains can be had on both fronts by employing optic fibers instead of wire conductors in many situations.
As one skilled in the use of optic fibers will recognize, the fibers are delicate and require protection to work reliably. For this reason it has been very difficult to employ optic fibers in the typically harsh downhole oil well environment. Temperature, pressure, vibration, chemicals, etc. are all common conditions downhole and are all deleterious to virtually all materials but particularly so with respect to delicate optic fibers.
Optic fibers have nevertheless been successfully employed in the downhole environment when properly clad and when run through empty hydraulic control conduit systems. This use has been successful for straight runs. The conduit protects the fiber from all of the aforementioned conditions and reliable fiber optic control has been achieved. The limited (to straight runs) downhole optic fiber usage has been very beneficial to the industry but remains limited, in the knowledge of the industry, since until this invention there has been no way to successfully split fiber off a main run to go in another direction. Running fiber in a primary wellbore and then splitting off some of it for a lateral has never been successfully attempted due to breakage of the fibers and vibration coupling. Existing hydraulic conduit "T" fittings when employed to split off fiber cause the fiber to break from contact with corners and tight bend radiuses and because they suffer vibration damage from contacting the walls of the conduit where vibration from the environment is strongest with respect to the space defined by the conduit.